Urinary incontinence in hospital patients: prevalence and associated factors

OBJECTIVES: to analyze the prevalence of urinary incontinence and its associated factors in hospital patients. METHOD: this is a cross-sectional epidemiological study whose data were collected using the instruments Sociodemographic and Clinical Data, Characteristics of Urinary Leakage and International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire - Short Form. Prevalence was surveyed on a single day for four consecutive months. Data were analyzed using Chi-square test, Fisher’s exact test, Student t-test, Mann-Whitney test and logistic regression (forward stepwise). RESULTS: the final sample consisted of 319 hospital adults (57.1% female), mean age of 47.9 years (SD=21.1). The prevalence of urinary incontinence was 22.9% (28% in women and 16.1% in men) and the associated factors were: female sex (OR=3.89), age (OR=1.03), asthma (OR=3.66), use of laxatives (OR=3.26), use of diaper during the evaluation (OR=2.75), use of diaper at home (OR=10.29), and use of diaper at some point during the hospital stay (OR=6.74). CONCLUSION: the findings of this study differ from those found in the scarce existing literature on the subject in hospital patients. There is a need for previous studies such as this before proposing the implementation of preventive and therapeutic actions during the hospital stay.